Interview: Thomas Odermatt of Roli Roti, Part One

This fall, Thomas Odermatt will celebrate a decade of the Roli Roti Gourmet Rotisserie truck. To mark the occasion, Roli Roti is hosting a pop-up outside Chez Panisse next Sunday, September 30 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. All proceeds from the food — porchetta sandwiches, salads and other snacks — will go to benefit Edible Schoolyard.

In part one of the interview, we discuss the origins of the Roli Roti truck and how it’s changed in 10 years, plus Odermatt’s Swiss background, why he first came to Berkeley from Europe, and his unfortunate first media breakthrough. Tomorrow in part two, we talk famous porchetta sandwiches.

PL: What do you remember about starting Roli Roti a decade ago?

TO [laughs]: Everything is always a long story with me. You know, 10 years ago, there were not many food trucks, certainly not one like mine. I gave myself the title “gourmet” because I focused on ingredients, rather than only the convenience that trucks had in those years.

Serving Gavin Newsom in 2004. Photo: The Chronicle

What were your biggest challenges then?

The biggest challenge 10 years ago was the health department. Food truck regulations are always different. They were always, ‘no, no, no, no, no.’ But I made it through with some adjustments.

The second challenge was the approach — I used the best free-range chickens. Farmers told me I was crazy. They said that for rotisserie, everyone was using out-of-state; they never heard of putting high quality on the grill. But I wanted to be my own person. I think maybe I was ahead of my time but I kept a low profile and stuck to what I believed in.

After 5 years, food trucks became trendy. No, not even 5 years ago — maybe 3, 4 years ago. The Moveable Feast thing started. Honestly, I don’t want to be a food truck. I want to be my own thing. I’m more of a caterer nowadays, but still at the farmers’ markets.

Going back to the inception — how and why did you start the business?

My family was in the chicken business and the meat business — the butcher business. They had a small butcher shop outside of Zurich, in the mountains. My grandfather had a small rabbit farm. I’m not a chef. I’m a farmer. [Ed. note: In addition to his family farm, he also earned a Master’s degree in organic farming.] That’s my background. My mother’s a good cook, my father’s a good butcher, so I learned the tricks.

Then I came to the United States, to UC Berkeley, where I wrote a business plan about importing olive oil. See, I thought I’d be trying something new.

Why Berkeley?

I went to UC Berkeley extension and was sitting in, undocumented, on classes at Haas [Business School]. The professor became a friend and he pushed forward for me to do [the rotisserie idea, not the olive oil one] … I didn’t plan to stay in America. I just came for three months on a student visa in 2001. I was going to go back to the family business.

It’s incredible how time flies and what Roli Roti is today and what it was 10 years ago.

How so?

The most important thing is that I have an idea about my competitor. Is it food trucks? No, they have four wheels like I have, but nothing else that I have. I want to be like a restaurant.

At the market. Photo: Sydney Sullivan

Was there a Roli Roti breakthrough?

When the truck got stolen [in November 2002]. All of a sudden I was in the media. It turned a lot of things around. It was literally a breakthrough in the news and media. It was on the San Francisco Chronicle front page!

[Ed. note: That article is worth a read, for no other reason that the line, “It’s the first truck with a giant chicken ever stolen in the city, a police dispatcher said.”]

It was a unique experience, to be in the media — and helpful to the business for sure.

You mentioned how Roli Roti has changed. How?

Today I am more settled as an individual. I became a better cook — and a chef, so to speak. Because of my farming background, I look at ingredients differently. I’m more ingredient driven. I’m simple. I cannot have a menu 20 items deep, so the focus is stronger on ingredients and sourcing. I don’t have a marketing department. I want it to be only food, food, food.

Click here for Part Two of the interview: We talk porchetta, porchetta inception, porchetta secrets, porchetta lines, and more.